Queen ‘delighted’ and Prince William ‘could not be happier’

Tony Appleton, a town crier, announces the birth of the royal baby, outside St. Mary's Hospital.

Photograph by: AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
, Postmedia News

LONDON — A lot of the fuss over the royal baby was media hype but there was a true sense of joy and jubilation late Monday when the news that Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge had a son and heir was finally proclaimed at Buckingham Palace.

We may live in a time of Twitter and other social media but several thousand spectators rushed the main gate of the venerable palace to read news of the royal birth proclaimed in the old way on a wooden easel painted in gold that had been brought to the spot by a liveried footman. And to get themselves photographed beside the parchment announcing the event and the signatures of the four doctors who assisted with the royal birth.

The announcement that the royal family had a new prince — weighing eight pounds, six ounces — first came in a press release via email shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time.

“Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4:24 p.m. Her Royal Highness and her son are both doing well,” the release said.

A short time later on Twitter, Buckingham Palace said: “The Queen and prince are delighted by the news of the birth of the baby.”

The Queen and Prince Philip are delighted at the news of the birth of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's baby— TheBritishMonarchy (@BritishMonarchy) July 22, 2013

This was followed by word from Prince William, who attended the birth, which took about 11 hours. He simply said: “I could not be happier.”

“Wonderful baby, new baby,” said Marcus Satchell, the royal gynecologist surgeon, who led the medical team assisting Kate with the delivery.

As happened when Prince William was born in the same wing of St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, no name for the prince was given. The palace said the names — royal babies usually are given four Christian names — would be announced “in due course.” It did not elaborate. The favourite names for a boy, according to British betting agencies and public opinion surveys, were George and James.

There was no official explanation of why it took more than four hours after the birth before the news was revealed publicly.

Will and Kate were said by the BBC to have spent this time quietly together bonding with their baby. Underlining his commitment to his family, it was reported that William intended to spend the night at the hospital with his wife and son.

Congratulations immediately flowed in from around the world, including from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said Canadians were “delighted” at the arrival of the “future Sovereign of Canada.”

Gov. General David Johnston, joined his wife, Sharon, in offering their “warmest congratulations.”

“We know that this happy event brings great joy not only to Their Royal Highnesses, but to the entire nation as well,” Johnston said in a statement.

Proud new grandfather, Prince Charles also weighed in.

“It is an incredibly special moment for William and Catherine and we are so thrilled for them on the birth of their baby boy,” Charles said in a statement. “Grandparenthood is a unique moment in anyone’s life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months, so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future.”

With the birth of a new prince, Britain is destined to be ruled by three generations of kings after Queen Elizabeth is no longer on the throne. That means a new constitutional law on primogeniture, which would have for the first time allowed a firstborn daughter to reign over one of the oldest kingdoms in the world, will not need to be invoked.

It is the first time since the latter days of Queen Victoria’s reign that there are three heirs in the direct line of succession to the throne. Prince Charles and Prince William will now be followed by the new prince.

Prince Henry of Wales, better known as Prince Harry, had been third in the line of succession. Harry, who may soon return to Afghanistan as a an army pilot, has been knocked back a spot to 4th in the line to the throne. Prince Andrew moves down from 4th place to 5th place.

Among the hundreds celebrating the royal birth outside Buckingham Palace were several Canadians.

“It’s history,” said Stella Plant from North Vancouver, B.C., who was born in Britain. “It is unifying and shows how much the British support the monarchy and Queen Elizabeth.”

“I grew up with Queen Elizabeth’s father (George VI) as king and am extremely excited to be here for this,” said Gail King of Oakville, Ont. “I am still upset with Canada for changing the flag and getting rid of the Union Jack in the corner. Thank goodness Ontario kept it.”

“We ridicule tradition a lot but what brings us together as families and societies is tradition,” said actress Wendy Peace of Toronto, who was clad in a faded Maple Leafs jersey as she took her Great Dane for a walk past the palace. “I find it amusing but I am more interested, I guess, than Americans because I grew up singing God Save the Queen in school.”

The baby’s birth will be proclaimed Tuesday in a 62-gun salute in the City of London and a 41-gun salute in the royal parks and other places across the kingdom.

The monarchs of Belgium and the Netherlands have recently abdicated, allowing their children to ascend their thrones. This is not thought likely to happen in the United Kingdom. Even as a teenager, Princess Elizabeth made it known that because of her sense of duty to the Empire (later the Commonwealth) she intended to rule for her lifetime.

If you are Prince Charles, the problem with the Queen staying on the job is that although she is 87, she still appears to be in robust health and fully committed to what she does. Her mother, Elizabeth, lived into her 102nd year .

If Charles was more popular there might be a public groundswell for him to replace his mother while she was still living. However, Charles has over the past couple of years slowly taken on more of his mother’s public duties.

Given the longevity of the Queen and the fact that William is only 31, the newest prince may not become monarch for 60 or 70 years. Guessing what the kingdom or the monarchy might be like by then is, obviously, rather difficult. But support for the monarchy in Britain climbed to 76 per cent during Kate’s pregnancy and is likely to remain at least that high for some time to come.

The popularity of the royal family took a dip after Princess Diana and Prince Charles divorced, but since Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris in 1997, the monarchy has been on the rebound. This was underlined during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee last year, which concluded with a trip by royal barge down the Thames brought out millions in the rain to celebrate the occasion with their sovereign.

The childhood of every future king or queen’s life has been a fish bowl for decades but there will be unknown, potentially difficult dimensions added by social media. A deal had sometimes protected Prince William from intense media attention when he was a toddler, but that broke down for a while in his youth before the media more or less gave him some space when he attended university and began to see Kate Middleton.

But in an often frenzied, new media world with lots of new players and the advent of telephones that will be able to communicate broadcast quality images instantly from anywhere there will be less time lag when things go well or badly. It is an international game and foreign journalists may be even less respectful of the royals right to some privacy.

The young prince will have a very public life, although it is likely his parents will try to shelter him as much as possible by staying with Kate’s parents who, while very wealthy, are commoners and seem sensible and fairly well grounded. Still, the child will be brought up in palaces and attend elite private schools and, inevitably, serve in the armed forces like his father, uncle, grandfather and great-grandfather. It will not always be possible to escape the eyes of the paparazzi.

How Britain and much of the world will celebrate the royal birth is already known. As happened when William was born in 1982, the fountain in front of Canada House in Trafalgar Square is to be dyed red and blue. The London Eye, the huge Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the Thames, which was not yet built when Will was born 31 years ago, is to be bathed at night in red, white and blue floodlights.

London’s almost 200-metre-tall BT tower will announce the birth on a huge LED scroll that can be seen from several kilometres away. Toronto’s CN Tower and Niagara Falls was bathed in blue light to announce the birth of a boy.

As in Canada, newborns and their mothers seldom stay in hospital for very long. Barring medical complications, Kate and the baby will make an appearance on the steps of the Lindo Wing within the next 24 hours, as Princess Diana and Prince Charles did after William’s birth in the same obstetrics ward.

After doing a turn for the hundreds of journalists and photographers who have been waiting outside the hospital, Will and Kate are expected to immediately return home by motorcade to Kensington Palace. Sometime after that Kate and the baby will join William at Anglesey, an island in Wales, where they have lived in a cottage for several years while the prince flies Sea King search-and-rescue helicopters for the Royal Air Force.

William has been on annual leave from his RAF job since last week. With the birth of the baby the prince begins two weeks of state-mandated paternity leave.

The couple are reported to have decided that they will forgo a full-time nanny. But a maternity nurse from St. Mary’s will join them for a few days at Kensington Palace where they will live in a small flat until the $1.5-million renovation of a 21-room apartment, once home to the Queen’s late sister Princess Margaret, is completed.

There has been intense speculation in the British media that Kate’s mother, Carole, will take a leading role in helping to raise the child, perhaps even moving in with the couple at Kensington Palace for a while. Carole Middleton, 58, the daughter of a builder was raised in a state-funded flat. She and her husband, Michael, met when they worked as cabin crew for British Airways. Carole Middleton has for nearly 20 years run Party Pieces from their home in Berkshire. It is by all accounts a prosperous business which sells party supplies through the mail.

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